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Kolhapur is having history of more than 2000 years. This is mainly
divided in three parts.
Ancient Period :- This will have to be considered approximately
up to the 9 th century, during which there was a colony-center at
Bramhapuri or before the construction of the Mahalaxmi Temple.
The Medicvalage :- This ranges from construction of the Mahalaxmi
Temple to that of the Residency. During this period, the main center
of inhabitation was the Mahalaxmi Temple which became city's religious
& political center.
Modern Period :- It began when the Residency was established during
1844 - 48
KOLHAPUR (Karvir Sansthan)
While the states of Gwalior, Indore, and Baroda are the residue
of the great Maratha military expansion of the eighteenth century,
Kolhapur is the last trace of the founding father of Maratha power,
the seventeenth- century warrior, Shivaji. He died in 1680 A. D.
after pushing the Moghuls out of western India and beginning the
process of Moghul decline. But when he died, the Moguls were still
strong enough to take their revenge on his successors.
The Moghul armies hemmed the Maratha forces into the mountainous
fringe of the western Deccan and stood by while Shivaji's powerful
state was riven by internal disputes. Shivaji had left no clear
successor and for thirty years after his death two separate lines
of descent, goaded by ambitious queens of and courtiers, fought
for precedence. Eventually, in 1710, the two parties managed to
establish a shaky territorial boundary between their possessions.
The line descending from Shivaji's elder son settled its capital
at Satara, took the northern Maratha country, and acquired the right
to expand to the north. Yet in Satara the princely family was soon
forced into the backseat: the hereditary minister, the Peshwa, took
over the reins of power, and his generals forged out to the north
and formed the princedoms.
Meanwhile, the line descending from Shivaji's younger son took
the southern territories and the right to expand to the south. They
settled in Panhala, amid the craggy peaks and deep valleys of the
Western Ghats, and later transferred their capital to the ancient
city and trading capital of Kolhapur. The southern frontier turned
out to be less profitable than the northern one. While Satara armies,
which started raiding north from the Maratha country in the early
eighteenth century, found that the remnants of Moghul grandees and
Rajput princes were easy pickings, the Kolhapur armies faced other
powerful emergent princes in the south - the Nizam of Hyderabad,
the Mysore armies of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, and the Moghul warmonger,
Zulfikar Khan.
The Kolhapur forces more or less confined to their mountain retreat,
occasionally harassed by Moghul armies, and reduced to snapping
at the heels of their more expensive cousins from Satara. Against
this rather unhappy background the princely line of Kolhapur turned
into a dynastic disaster. Time and time again the Kolhapur prince
failed to produce an heir, or died when the heir was only a few
years old. Sometimes it was the toll of war, which brought about
this unfortunate state of affairs, but sometimes it was a streak
of insanity, which dogged the family; and sometimes just an inability
to survive to any great age in the dark fortresses amid the sticky
sub-tropical forests of Western Ghats. Each time the failure to
provide a clean succession created an opportunity for rivalries,
ambitions and debilitating succession disputes.
In the early nineteenth century, Kolhapur was just as uneasy under
British control as were the other Maratha states of Gwalior and
Indore. At first the British tried to settle the state by force.
Company troops invaded in the 1820s, again in the 1840s when the
outlying areas of the state rose in revolt; and in 1857 the Kolhapur
troops mutinied. After the Mutiny, however, the British guardians
changed their tactics and decided to use the books rather than the
gun to bring Kolhapur to heel. This strategy had its own difficulties
because of the mortality rate of the Kolhapur heirs.
The British invested great care and attention in the education
of two Kolhapur heirs, who, before they could ascend the throne
and emerge from their British-made chrysalis as `model rulers' were
gathered to their forefathers. It was not until Shahu Chhatrapati
ascended the throne in 1894 that the policy finally paid off. Under
Shahu and later under his son Rajaram, Kolhapur acquired the social
reforms and public buildings, which the British so liked to see
in the 'Native' states. Moreover, Kolhapur became renowned as a
center of outdoor sports, notably the exotic business of pig-sticking;
and an extraordinary form of hunting deer:
Rajaram imported Cheetah from Africa and used these animals to
hunt the herds of black buck in the hills and valleys of Western
Ghats.The Maharaja drove an enormous horse-drawn wagon across the
rough terrain in pursuit of the black duck and, when he had succeeded
in separating his prey from the herd, his attendants removed the
hoods from the Cheetah and allowed them to bound out of the wagon,
overhaul the unlucky buck, and bring it to the Ground.
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